Game-Based Learning for NYC Students with Special Needs

Connect the Kids NYC and KNeoWorld Inc. have teamed up to raise money through an Indegogo campaign to supply tablets and game-based learning software to students with special needs in NYC.

Connect the Kids NYC is a nonprofit that recently launched on Indegogo with the goal of raising $1 million to helps students with special needs in New York City schools. Connect the Kids, what began with Gloria Corsino, president of the nonprofit Parent’s Association that supports P.S. 811X in the Bronx (the largest self-contained special education school in NYC), aims to deliver tablets and game-based learning software to the 200,000 students with special needs in New York’s District 75 by raising funds through donations, crowd funding, and other sources. The initiative is driven by research that shows game-based learning helps children with autism and other special needs to better connect to their families and the wider world, become literate in technology, expand their awareness, and enhance their academic skills.

Corsino, who is a mother of two children with autism, recognized the potential of game-based learning and made it her mission to make this critical developmental tool available to all students in need in New York City. “For children who are non-verbal, tablets and game-based learning make it so much easier to engage them, to bring them out of that non-verbal stage,” said Corsino. “If I could wish for one thing, for my children and all children with special needs, it would be to get the funding in order to purchase devices with learning technology to unlock the world our children live in.”